United States

At the beginning of 2016, a minor war broke out between two intellectual camps: one said that as a result of the collapse in energy prices, the US economy would slide in a recession as the bulk of the states responsible for job gains under Obama were the same ones that would get crushed with oil plunging. The opposing camp - which boasted Janet Yellen at one point - vociferously claimed that sliding oil prices are great for consumers and with thanks to the extra purchasing power, the US would not only avoid a recession but prosper.

Amnesty International has urged the US President to cancel impending weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain or risk being complicit in war crimes.

Last year Goldman Sachs entered into a settlement with federal and state governments over its role in packaging and selling toxic mortgage-backed securities in the housing meltdown to unsuspecting buyers while subsequently turning around and shorting those very same securities.  As part of the settlement, Goldman agreed to provide $1.8 billion in homeowner debt relief to delinquent U.S. borrowers.

For the 9th straight week (and 35th of the last 37 weeks), the US oil rig count rose this week (surging by 14 to 631 - highest since September 2015).

The rig count continues to track the lagged WTI price

US Crude production has accelerated at a faster pace than the lagged rig count...

And that is pushing OPEC to the breaking point:

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

The Dutch elections on Wednesday have provided a whole bunch of Orwellian narratives. PM Mark Rutte’s right wing VVD party, actually the ‘business’ -or should we say ‘rent-seekers’ in 2017- party, who lost some 20% of the seats they had obtained in the previous parliamentary election in November 2012, down from 41 to 33 seats, is declared the big winner. While Geert Wilders’ very right wing party, PVV, won 25% more seats -it went from 16 to 20- and is the big loser.